Building Useful Theory: Tacit Knowledge, Practitioner Reports, and the Culture of LIS Inquiry

Abstract

It is asserted that a greater understanding of tacit knowledge, or the private knowledge of experts, has the potential to transform the nature and use of research in library and information studies (LIS). Drawing on LIS and higher education literatures, the work of a cross-disciplinary spectrum of North American and European inquirers into tacit knowledge, and building on foundations laid by Georg Simmel and other theorists of the stranger, this paper addresses the neglect by practitioners of faculty research; practitioner use of the LIS literature; the existence of LIS education and LIS practice as distinct tacit knowledge arenas operating with often-conflicting definitions of success; the certainty that all researchers are strangers in various professional contexts and the implications of this aphorism; and the character and characteristics of the effective tacit knowledge researcher in LIS.